4 poems

Emma Atkins

Cataloguing Pools

Crab: orange, soft under thumb,
squirms away at application of pressure, 
so does foot when it skims over wave
sharpened stones, 
fleeing into sandal as crab into crevice. 
Snail: algae
green over gray,
stuck to underside of rock 
and sea glass and snail,
suckling noiselessly on the surface of itself.
Single fish: grayer than snail, thin as a needle
slipping between stones, 
stitching the sea bed together,
pursued half-heartedly by crab. 
The water must be too warm for hunting. 
I too am not interested in catching, killing, cooking, eating – 
only in observing. Cataloguing the rock pool.
Still, I press in – reflexively
remold the ecosystem
into the shape of my toes:
an invasive species in this subtle
almost-ocean home.

Beside Painting

in the near darkness, using the bottle lamp’s wavering glow to distinguish one color from another. Dip the brush into red for the parts of the shell the light doesn’t reach. Outside, the sky is a blueberry smoothie, thickened by cloud; stars blink in and out like fairy lights. Inside, red fades into peach.
White space lets the snail breathe.
Swipe the brush up, down and back to smooth the curves. Each movement is muscle memory – shapes learnt. The colors are more elusive. The red has touched blue, and now the mantle to the tip of the spiral is a mulberry hue. Rinse the brush, dip it again into blue as the sky blends itself into something new.
By the time the shell is complete, no longer the intended color but something darker
– dawn has broken.

£80? Absurd

High-backed chair covered in crinkling cellophane;
Music blaring, fluctuating between rock to punk to rock again;
Bald-headed tattooist explaining that there might be a little pain
but it wasn’t anything to complain about. Ouch.

Needle whirring, like a wasp in a kettle:
a constant high-pitched hum and occasional clink of metal.
It’s concerningly similar to undergoing dental.
Heart rate increases, but the tattooist reassures with a smile – missing a tooth.

It takes around forty minutes,
before the tattooist declares he’s finished.
Needle silent. He wipes a damp tissue over the area, then bins it.
I crane my neck to look at the black ink snail. Huh.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. 
But there it is, on my body forever: smiling,
a snail with a red-heart speech bubble, popping.
Crazy snail lady – title earned. £80 spent on something absurd.

Gig Night

Fog machine pant and cherry vape exhale
strobe lights flashing 3D
solid
every pub is the same,
variations 
on a grubby theme
names like Carlisle, Pig, White Horse, White Lion
sea of black hoodies,
because we’re punk at heart, but it’s January
drunken breaths breed humidity
the bass is a heartbeat,
hat tricks you into feeling a press of bodies
where there is only you and your earplugs
swaying to the shitty grime